Finance Disrupted Asia 2018

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Overview

The heady world of finance has been turned on its head in the decade since the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2007–8. Lehman Brothers, a leading investment bank, collapsed, its rival Bear Stearns was sold, and many others were so close to bankruptcy that only controversially generous bailout packages could save them. As familiar names from the banking world struggled, China stepped into the limelight, becoming the world’s biggest source of capital. Today four of the world’s top five banks are Chinese. Tech giants such as Apple, Amazon and Facebook have become the most valuable companies and attract the best talent. Why suit up for Goldman Sachs when you could wear flip-flops and t-shirts at Facebook? Financial technology (fintech) companies, from Ant Financial in China to Square in the United States, have broken into the consumer-banking space like a wrecking ball.

What will the next ten years have in store for Asia’s financial institutions? How has the shape of the financial-services sector changed in the last decade? Can regulators and traditional companies keep pace with the evolution? How will new technologies, from artificial intelligence (AI) to blockchains, alter the financial ecosystem further? And in the shadow of the GFC’s ten-year anniversary, what have the big banks learned that could help them avoid future catastrophes?

Finance Disrupted 2018 will convene regulators, banking leaders, technologists, entrepreneurs and economists to discuss the future of banking in Asia and whether the sector is prepared to identify and prevent future crises.

The Economist Events’ philosophy is to tackle issues with a forward looking, uniquely global perspective. We aim to create events for the intellectually curious: people who enjoy ideas and who are passionate about the issues that define our world.

Why attend

The Economist Events offers a truly global perspective on a country’s place in the world and its future outlook. With the newspaper’s characteristic clarity and wit, these summits offer fresh and challenging perspectives.

Who should attend?

Chief financial officers

Chief information security officers

Chief technology officers

Chief strategy officers

Chief executive officers

Chief operation officers

Heads/directors of banking

Heads/directors of strategy and risk

Heads/directors of product and innovation

Speakers

Henry Ma

Vice president and chief information officer, WeBank

Henry Ma

Vice president and chief information officer, WeBank

Henry Ma is a vice-president and the chief information officer of WeBank, China’s first privately-owned bank. He oversees the strategic planning and development of the bank’s fintech business.

Before joining WeBank, he was the general manager of Ping An Technology and a vice-president at SF Express, and lived and worked in Silicon Valley for more than a decade. He has completed IT integrations and constructed management systems for many well-known enterprises.

Mr Ma holds a bachelor’s degree in science degree from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University.

Amit Shah

Chief fintech officer, Yes Bank

Amit Shah

Chief fintech officer, Yes Bank

Amit is head of fintech and corporate strategy at Yes Bank, India’sfourth largest private sector bank. He heads Yes Bank's Yes fintech accelerator program for the bank which helps fintech startups create path-breaking solutions for the banking industry. Yes fintech has graduated over 15 startups from its 2 cohorts since launch in 2017, having received over 1200 applications from more than ten countries. He is also actively involved in the digital transformation projects being undertaken by Yes Bank.

He is a champion on the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSC) council, and member of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI).

Werner Steinmueller

Werner Steinmueller

From 2004 to 2016 Werner Steinmüller was the head of global transaction banking. In this role he was responsible for leading Deutsche Bank’s global efforts in trade finance, cash management, institutional cash and securities services and had additional co-responsibilities for the commercial banking business in Germany. From 2003 to 2004 he was chief operating officer for the bank’s global transaction banking, from 1998 to 2003 he was head of global banking division europe, and from 1996 to 1998 he was co-head of corporate finance Germany. Werner Steinmüller joined Deutsche Bank from Citibank in 1991 and was responsible for the origination of investment banking products and for the execution of ECM transactions. He served as head of corporate relationship management for Europe and prior to this he was co-head of the investment banking division for Germany. From 2015 to May 2018 Werner Steinmueller was chairman of the supervisory board of Deutsche Postbank AG. Werner Steinmüller studied at the University of Darmstadt and holds a master degree in mechanical engineering and business administration.

Jing Ulrich

Managing director and vice-chairman, Asia-Pacific, JPMorgan Chase

Jing Ulrich

Managing director and vice-chairman, Asia-Pacific, JPMorgan Chase

Jing Ulrich is the managing director and vice-chairman for the Asia-Pacific at JPMorgan Chase. She provides strategic advice to the firm’s most senior global clients across all sectors and asset classes while building relationships with executives at Asia’s leading enterprises.

Educated at Harvard and Stanford, Ms Ulrich is one of the most prominent advisors to the world’s largest asset-management companies, sovereign wealth funds and multinational corporations. Her views influence the allocation of trillions of dollars of investments. She has received numerous accolades for her work in the industry, being ranked one of Fortune magazine’s 50 most powerful global businesswomen. Forbes has named her one of Asia’s 50 power businesswomen and ranked her among the 100 most powerful women in the world.

In recent years, publications including the China Daily, China Entrepreneur magazine and FinanceAsia have consistently ranked Ms Ulrich among the top businesspeople in Asia. She has even been dubbed “the unofficial voice of China” and the “Oprah Winfrey of the investment world.” Because of her in-depth knowledge of China’s linkages with the rest of the world, she has been an important figure in shaping the international community’s approach to investing in the Asia-Pacific.

Maggie Qiu

Head of Sanctions, Greater China and North Asia, Standard Chartered Bank

Maggie Qiu

Head of Sanctions, Greater China and North Asia, Standard Chartered Bank

Maggie Qiu is the head of sanctions for Greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered Bank, and manages the sanctions-compliance program for the region. Before joining Standard Chartered, she was the Asia-Pacific director for global financial crimes compliance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and was responsible for regulatory exams, audit, regulatory changes, compliance monitoring and testing, issue management, policy and programmes, risk assessments and training for 12 jurisdictions in the Asia-Pacific region.

Before relocating to Hong Kong in 2014, Ms Qiu was the head of financial crimes compliance and money laundering reporting for Bank of America China, and led Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s anti–money laundering and economic sanctions efforts for all branches in China. Previously, she worked for the financial intelligence unit in Bank of America’s global headquarters in the United States, and held risk-management roles at Wachovia and Wells Fargo.

She holds a master’s degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and is a frequent speaker at international seminars and conferences on financial crimes compliance, sanctions, banking regulation and digital currencies.

Sridhar Sidhu

Sridhar Sidhu leads the enterprise information security (EIS) services organisation at Wells Fargo, and is responsible for global delivery of services from multiple locations. Before joining the bank in 2014, he was a finance risk transformation services leader at a global professional services firm, and led global merger and acquisition projects in the financial services industry

He was one of the first few people in the world to achieve the CGEIT certification in the governance of enterprise IT, and has been named a subject-matter expert on offshoring and internal controls. His work on risk governance and oversight practices at the board level at S&P 200 organisations resulted in a publication by the National Association of Corporate Directors in the United States, and he has assisted in drafting a board practices report published by the Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals.

Mr Sidhu is a regular keynote speaker and panellist at global summits on cybersecurity, which he sees as a cause that everyone, not only those in business, should play their part in to secure the economy and society at large.

Antoine Blondeau

Co-Founder and managing partner, Alpha Intelligence Capital

Antoine Blondeau

Co-Founder and managing partner, Alpha Intelligence Capital

Antoine Blondeau is a co-founder and the chairman and chief executive of Sentient Technologies, one of the world’s most prominent artificial (AI) technology companies. He is also a co-founder and managing partner at Alpha Intelligence Capital. A seasoned entrepreneur and investor, he has 25 years of experience in the technology industry, having held senior leadership positions at Salesforce, Good Technology and Sybase.

Mr Blondeau’s career highlights include leading Dejima, the company that powered DARPA’s foundational CALO project, which later evolved into Apple’s Siri, as chief executive. He was also the chief operating officer of Zi Corporation, whose smart text-input software was embedded in hundreds of millions of devices.

He is an investor in, board member of and advisor to a number of companies in North America and Greater China, and the author or co-author of five patents. He holds an MBA from ESCP Europe in Paris, and has studied economics and commerce at Chuo University in Tokyo.

Peng T. Ong

Managing partner, Monk’s Hill Ventures

Peng T. Ong

Managing partner, Monk’s Hill Ventures

Peng Ong was the co-founder and chief technology of Match.com, which was acquired by IAC. After Match.com, he was the founder and chief executive of Interwoven, which went public on the Nasdaq and achieved a $10 billion market cap before being acquired, and is now part of HP. He then founded Encentuate, which was acquired by IBM. The three businesses he started now generate annual revenues totalling more than $1 billion.

Most recently, Mr Ong was a partner at GSR Ventures, a leading venture-capital firm in China. He has also served on many boards, including those of SingTel and YY.com. He is currently the chairman of Solve Education!

He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas and a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Illinois.

Thiri Thant Mon

Managing partner, Sandanila Investments

Thiri Thant Mon

Managing partner, Sandanila Investments

Thiri Thant Mon is a founding managing partner at Sandanila Investments, an investment-banking advisory firm that advises on foreign investment, equity and debt financing, joint ventures, sales, mergers and acquisitions. She is a leader within the Myanmar business community and is actively involved in promoting Myanmar as a destination for foreign investment. She serves as a board member of NEXlabs and ThitsaWorks, and of the non-profit organisations Turquoise Mountain Foundation, Kite Tales Foundation, Phandeeyar Foundation, Doh Eain and the British Chambers of Commerce Myanmar.

She is a native of Yangon and was educated in Myanmar, the United States and Britain. She was previously an executive committee member at Yoma Strategic Holdings, where she headed corporate development. Before returning to Myanmar in 2013, she was a seasoned investment banker at Morgan Stanley in Britain, specialising in multibillion-dollar debt financings and interest-rate hedging for large European financial institutions. She started her career with Capital One in the United States and managed credit-risk forecasting for the British and European businesses.

She holds a degree in economics from the College of William & Mary in Virginia and an MBA from the London Business School.

Amir Amiruddin

Co-founder, Investree

Amir Amiruddin

Co-founder, Investree

Amir was a senior banker turned fintech founder, angel investor and mentor to young people. Amir has over 23 years experience in investment banking and capital markets before co-founding investree in 2015. he was head of Indonesia, wealth management for SMBC Singapore, head of Indonesia investment banking for Nomura Singapore, co-head of capital markets & treasury solutions - Indonesia for Deutsche Bank Singapore, head of investment banking for AAA Securities Jakarta, AVP planning & business development for Bakrie Finance Jakarta, and he started his career in London as a commercial trainee at British Gas PLC after graduating from college.

Upasana Taku

Co-founder, MobiKwik

Upasana Taku

Co-founder, MobiKwik

The first woman in India to lead a payments start up, Upasana Taku, has played an instrumental role in building Mobikwik as one of India’s largest digital financial services platform, with a well-entrenched network of over 3 million direct merchants and 260 million plus users. Taku is widely recognised amongst the top women achievers in India, for her unfaltering contribution as the chief anchor, innovator and leader at MobiKwik. In recognition of her achievements in the tech startup ecosystem in India, Taku was featured by Forbes as one of the ‘Asia’s Women to Watch in 2016’. She has also featured in the Fortune 40 Under 40 List in the year 2016. Upasana comes with a strong background in payments. She has worked as a senior product manager at PayPal in Silicon Valley. She has also been associated with HSBC in San Diego, USA. In 2008 she decided to return to India and contribute to the ecosystem back home. A year later she co-founded MobiKwik.

Haichen Wang

Chief financial officer, Youxin Financial

Haichen Wang

Chief financial officer, Youxin Financial

Haichen Wang, CFA, is the chief financial officer of Youxin Financial. Before joining the firm, he was the director of strategy at Didi Chuxing, where he spearheaded international strategy and investments, including Didi’s acquisition of Brazil’s 99 Taxis and strategic investments in Taxify, Grab and Careem.

Previously, Mr Wang was an executive director at Goldman Sachs in the Financial Institutions Group, where he worked on a number of IPOs of Chinese banks, securities firms and asset-management companies. Mr Wang holds a juris doctor degree from the NYU School of Law, and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Cornell University.

Cory Johnson

Chief market strategist, Ripple

Cory Johnson

Chief market strategist, Ripple

Cory is the chief market strategist for Ripple, which develops the Ripple payment protocol and exchange network. Before joining Ripple, he worked as a hedge-fund portfolio manager at Kingsford Capital Management, and as a journalist at Bloomberg and CNBC covering high-growth technology companies.

Earlier in his career, Mr Johnson ushered in many start-ups, including theStreet.com, the Industry Standard, and SLAM and Vibe magazines.

Brian Behlendorf

Executive director, Hyperledger Project

Brian Behlendorf

Executive director, Hyperledger Project

Brian Behlendorf is the executive director of the Hyperledger Project. He was a primary developer of the Apache web server, the most popular web-server software on the Internet, and a founding member of the Apache Software Foundation. He has also served on the board of the Mozilla Foundation since 2003 and of the Electronic Frontier Foundation since 2013. He was the founding chief technology officer of CollabNet and the World Economic Forum. Most recently, Mr Behlendorf was a managing director at Mithril Capital Management, a global technology-investment firm.

Mark Smith

Chief executive and founder, Symbiont.io

Mark Smith

Chief executive and founder, Symbiont.io

Mark Shelby Smith is the chief executive and founder of Symbiont.io, a smart contracts platform for institutional applications of blockchain technology. Symbiont was formed in the merger of MathMoney f(x), founded by Mr Smith in 2013, and Counterparty.io.

Mr Smith brings two decades of global experience in fintech to his role as chief executive of Symbiont.io, and has been a pioneer in creating and deploying disruptive technology into the foreign-exchange ecosystem for institutional and non-institutional customer segments. During his career, Mark has been a founder of four fintech companies that have gone from start-up to exit, including the NexTrade ECN, MatchBook f(x), Lava Trading and Anderen Bank of Tampa Bay.

Susan Zhou

Chief operating officer and board member, QLC Chain

Susan Zhou

Chief operating officer and board member, QLC Chain

Susan was a former partner of Rhodium Capital. Prior to that, Susan had more than 10-years of experience in investment banking and private equity across Asia. Susan earned her M.B.A. in the University of Hong Kong.

Douglas Arner

Kerry holdings professor in law, University of Hong Kong

Douglas Arner

Kerry holdings professor in law, University of Hong Kong

Douglas W. Arner is a professor in law at the University of Hong Kong and one of the world’s leading experts on financial regulation, particularly the intersection between law, finance and technology. He is a member of the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council, an executive committee member of the Asia Pacific Structured Finance Association, and a senior visiting fellow of Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. Douglas served as head of the HKU Department of Law from 2011 to 2014 and as co-director of the Duke University-HKU Asia-America Institute in Transnational Law from 2005 to 2016. From 2006 to 2011 he was the director of HKU’s Asian Institute of International Financial Law, which he co-founded in 1999. He has published fifteen books and more than 120 articles, chapters and reports on international financial law and regulation. Douglas has served as a consultant with, among others, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, APEC and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and has lectured, co-organised conferences and seminars and been involved with financial sector reform projects around the world.

Louis Kuijs

Head of Asia economics, Oxford Economics

Louis Kuijs

Head of Asia economics, Oxford Economics

As head of Asia Economics at Oxford Economics in Hong Kong, Louis leads the firm’s macroeconomic research and forecasting for Asia, oversees the team of economists across the region and serves clients globally, including through meetings and conferences. Before joining Oxford Economics, Louis held a number of senior positions in both the public and private sectors, including at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank in Beijing, and as chief economist for Greater China at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong. While with the World Bank in Beijing, he led the well-regarded China Quarterly Update, headed the mid-term review of China’s 11th Five Year Plan and led research on China’s saving and investment, rebalancing, and long term growth and structural change. Mr. Kuijs is a well-known observer of the Chinese economy and contributes regularly to the international media.

Peter Kim

Investment strategist and managing director, Mirae Asset

Peter Kim

Investment strategist and managing director, Mirae Asset

Peter Kim is part of Mirae Asset’s global business division, which is based in Seoul. He has 25 years in the investment industry, in fields ranging from investment banking to asset management. He previously served as country head for HSBC Securities Korea. During his time in asset management, he managed long-only and long-short equities portfolios covering the pan-Asian region. Mr Kim was a co-portfolio manager for Gavekal Capital, one of the largest independent macro and asset-allocation firms in the world. Currently, his role with Mirae Asset Daewoo covers analysing global investment trends across multiple asset classes, with a strong focus on equities.

Steven Cochrane

Chief Asia-Pacific economist, Moody's Analytics

Steven Cochrane

Chief Asia-Pacific economist, Moody's Analytics

Steve Cochrane is the chief Asia-Pacific economist at Moody’s Analytics. He leads the Asia economic analysis and forecasting activities of the Moody’s Analytics research team, as well as the continual expansion of the company’s international, national and subnational forecast models. He also directs consulting projects for clients to help them understand the effect of regional economic developments on their business under baseline forecasts and alternative scenarios.

Steve’s expertise lies in providing clear insights into an area’s strengths, weaknesses and comparative advantages, relative to macro or global economic trends. A highly-regarded speaker, he has provided economic insights at hundreds of engagements over the past 20 years and has been featured on Wall Street Radio, the PBS News Hour, C-SPAN and CNBC.

Mr Cochrane holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and is a Penn Institute for Urban Research Scholar. He also holds a master’s degree from the University of Colorado at Denver and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Davis. Currently based in North America, he travels extensively and will continue his career from the Singapore office of Moody’s Analytics starting in August 2018.

Zhou Jing

President, PINTEC Group

Zhou Jing

President, PINTEC Group

Zhou Jing has served as the president of Pintec since January 2018. She joined the group in 2015, initially as the chief executive of Dumiao, Pintec’s digital lending technology subsidiary.

Before joining Pintec, Ms Zhou had 17 years of experience working for multinational banks, and extensive experience in risk management and developing financial products for consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises. She worked at Standard Chartered Bank (China) for nine years after moving back to China in 2006. As country credit head for China at Standard Chartered Bank, she was responsible for more than $5 billion worth of credit assets. Previously, she spent eight years at Capital One in the United States, holding positions in risk management, marketing and product development. She holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Virginia.

Christine Ip

Christine Ip

Christine joined United Overseas Bank (UOB) in 2011 and is now the managing director responsible for developing the bank’s Greater China strategy. She was appointed as chief executive of UOB Hong Kong in 2012 and chief executive for Greater China from 1 July 2016.

Ms Ip is a seasoned banker with more than 30 years of experience in consumer and corporate banking. Before joining UOB, she held a range of senior management positions in Hong Kong, the United States, Canada, Singapore and China with ANZ, Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC.

Her achievements brought her the Asia Retail Congress award for best international retail banker in 2008, and the All-China Women’s Federation named her among the top 100 senior women executives in Greater China in 2012.

Ms Ip holds a bachelor’s degree in arts from the University of Hong Kong and an MBA from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch is Asia economics editor of The Economist, with a focus on China and other emerging markets in the region. He is the author of a special report on the Chinese financial system, Big but brittle, which was published in May. Simon previously served as a correspondent with the Financial Times and Reuters in Beijing, Shanghai and London, reporting on finance and economics. He also had a brief stint as a table-tennis reporter during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Outside of journalism, Simon is national secretary for the Rhodes Scholarships for China.

Simon Cox

Emerging markets editor, The Economist

Simon Cox

Emerging markets editor, The Economist

Simon Cox is emerging-markets editor at The Economist. He is based in Hong Kong. Mr Cox has spent over ten years with the newspaper, including stints in London and Delhi. In 2014, he left journalism to become managing director and Asia-Pacific investment strategist for BNY Mellon, before returning to the paper in 2016.

During his career at The Economist and BNY Mellon, Mr Cox has written a variety of special reports and white papers. He has explored the technological ambitions of India and China ("High-tech Hopefuls", 2007), the world's arduous recovery from the global financial crisis ("The Long Climb", 2009), China's surprisingly resilient economy ("Pedalling Prosperity", 2012), and Korea's social and geopolitical divisions ("Parallel Worlds", 2013). In 2008, he edited "The Growth Report", published by the Commission on Growth and Development. He was also a contributor to the Oxford Companion to the Economics of China.

Agenda

Registration and networking refreshments

9:00 AM

Chair’s opening remarks

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch is Asia economics editor of The Economist, with a focus on China and other emerging markets in the region. He is the author of a special report on the Chinese financial system, Big but brittle, which was published in May. Simon previously served as a correspondent with the Financial Times and Reuters in Beijing, Shanghai and London, reporting on finance and economics. He also had a brief stint as a table-tennis reporter during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Outside of journalism, Simon is national secretary for the Rhodes Scholarships for China.

9:10 AM

Panel: Reformists or revolutionaries? Banks and tech

According to PwC, a consultancy, 72% of global financial-services firms see lack of tech talent as a threat to growth. Since the GFC, tech companies have come to be the most valuable in the world. Compared with the tech industry’s flexible work practices, designer offices and high salaries, the financial-services industry appears drab. To compound matters, the lines between tech and financial-services firms are blurring.To compete, banks are acquiring or collaborating with fintech firms, or moving their value chains to higher-value functions like private wealth management. But will it be enough? And how can banks overhaul their cultures to attract top talent?

Henry Ma

Vice president and chief information officer, WeBank

Henry Ma

Vice president and chief information officer, WeBank

Henry Ma is a vice-president and the chief information officer of WeBank, China’s first privately-owned bank. He oversees the strategic planning and development of the bank’s fintech business.

Before joining WeBank, he was the general manager of Ping An Technology and a vice-president at SF Express, and lived and worked in Silicon Valley for more than a decade. He has completed IT integrations and constructed management systems for many well-known enterprises.

Mr Ma holds a bachelor’s degree in science degree from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University.

Amit Shah

Chief fintech officer, Yes Bank

Amit Shah

Chief fintech officer, Yes Bank

Amit is head of fintech and corporate strategy at Yes Bank, India’sfourth largest private sector bank. He heads Yes Bank's Yes fintech accelerator program for the bank which helps fintech startups create path-breaking solutions for the banking industry. Yes fintech has graduated over 15 startups from its 2 cohorts since launch in 2017, having received over 1200 applications from more than ten countries. He is also actively involved in the digital transformation projects being undertaken by Yes Bank.

He is a champion on the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSC) council, and member of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI).

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch is Asia economics editor of The Economist, with a focus on China and other emerging markets in the region. He is the author of a special report on the Chinese financial system, Big but brittle, which was published in May. Simon previously served as a correspondent with the Financial Times and Reuters in Beijing, Shanghai and London, reporting on finance and economics. He also had a brief stint as a table-tennis reporter during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Outside of journalism, Simon is national secretary for the Rhodes Scholarships for China.

9:45 AM

In conversation: Markets disrupted

At the 19th Party Congress president Xi Jinping reiterated China’s intention to open its equity markets up to international competition. The country’s technology firms are also expanding overseas through high-profile acquisitions. How will this affect global financial institutions? How will economic friction between the world’s biggest economy develop over the next ten years? And what will be the long-term effect of open banking models, spurred by investment in innovation, be on the region?

Werner Steinmueller

Werner Steinmueller

From 2004 to 2016 Werner Steinmüller was the head of global transaction banking. In this role he was responsible for leading Deutsche Bank’s global efforts in trade finance, cash management, institutional cash and securities services and had additional co-responsibilities for the commercial banking business in Germany. From 2003 to 2004 he was chief operating officer for the bank’s global transaction banking, from 1998 to 2003 he was head of global banking division europe, and from 1996 to 1998 he was co-head of corporate finance Germany. Werner Steinmüller joined Deutsche Bank from Citibank in 1991 and was responsible for the origination of investment banking products and for the execution of ECM transactions. He served as head of corporate relationship management for Europe and prior to this he was co-head of the investment banking division for Germany. From 2015 to May 2018 Werner Steinmueller was chairman of the supervisory board of Deutsche Postbank AG. Werner Steinmüller studied at the University of Darmstadt and holds a master degree in mechanical engineering and business administration.

Jing Ulrich

Managing director and vice-chairman, Asia-Pacific, JPMorgan Chase

Jing Ulrich

Managing director and vice-chairman, Asia-Pacific, JPMorgan Chase

Jing Ulrich is the managing director and vice-chairman for the Asia-Pacific at JPMorgan Chase. She provides strategic advice to the firm’s most senior global clients across all sectors and asset classes while building relationships with executives at Asia’s leading enterprises.

Educated at Harvard and Stanford, Ms Ulrich is one of the most prominent advisors to the world’s largest asset-management companies, sovereign wealth funds and multinational corporations. Her views influence the allocation of trillions of dollars of investments. She has received numerous accolades for her work in the industry, being ranked one of Fortune magazine’s 50 most powerful global businesswomen. Forbes has named her one of Asia’s 50 power businesswomen and ranked her among the 100 most powerful women in the world.

In recent years, publications including the China Daily, China Entrepreneur magazine and FinanceAsia have consistently ranked Ms Ulrich among the top businesspeople in Asia. She has even been dubbed “the unofficial voice of China” and the “Oprah Winfrey of the investment world.” Because of her in-depth knowledge of China’s linkages with the rest of the world, she has been an important figure in shaping the international community’s approach to investing in the Asia-Pacific.

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch is Asia economics editor of The Economist, with a focus on China and other emerging markets in the region. He is the author of a special report on the Chinese financial system, Big but brittle, which was published in May. Simon previously served as a correspondent with the Financial Times and Reuters in Beijing, Shanghai and London, reporting on finance and economics. He also had a brief stint as a table-tennis reporter during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Outside of journalism, Simon is national secretary for the Rhodes Scholarships for China.

10:20 AM

Coffee break

After the networking break, three sessions will examine cybersecurity, AI and blockchains. Each will begin with a 10-minute TED-style talk, followed by a 30-minute panel.

10:50 AM

Finance: The criminal’s paradise?

According to Deloitte, a consultancy, cybercrimes cost financial institutions $578 billion in the Asia-Pacific in 2016. As the sector becomes more data-driven, the cost of crime will only increase. Regulators are increasingly placing liability for customer data-theft on institutions. Breaches can lead to legal fallout and massive loss of trust.How can financial institutions develop a region-wide cyber-risk strategy? What are the latest regulatory developments around Asia? How can banks create effective risk-management functions? And will the adoption of blockchain technology prevent future breaches?

Maggie Qiu

Head of Sanctions, Greater China and North Asia, Standard Chartered Bank

Maggie Qiu

Head of Sanctions, Greater China and North Asia, Standard Chartered Bank

Maggie Qiu is the head of sanctions for Greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered Bank, and manages the sanctions-compliance program for the region. Before joining Standard Chartered, she was the Asia-Pacific director for global financial crimes compliance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and was responsible for regulatory exams, audit, regulatory changes, compliance monitoring and testing, issue management, policy and programmes, risk assessments and training for 12 jurisdictions in the Asia-Pacific region.

Before relocating to Hong Kong in 2014, Ms Qiu was the head of financial crimes compliance and money laundering reporting for Bank of America China, and led Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s anti–money laundering and economic sanctions efforts for all branches in China. Previously, she worked for the financial intelligence unit in Bank of America’s global headquarters in the United States, and held risk-management roles at Wachovia and Wells Fargo.

She holds a master’s degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and is a frequent speaker at international seminars and conferences on financial crimes compliance, sanctions, banking regulation and digital currencies.

Sridhar Sidhu

Sridhar Sidhu leads the enterprise information security (EIS) services organisation at Wells Fargo, and is responsible for global delivery of services from multiple locations. Before joining the bank in 2014, he was a finance risk transformation services leader at a global professional services firm, and led global merger and acquisition projects in the financial services industry

He was one of the first few people in the world to achieve the CGEIT certification in the governance of enterprise IT, and has been named a subject-matter expert on offshoring and internal controls. His work on risk governance and oversight practices at the board level at S&P 200 organisations resulted in a publication by the National Association of Corporate Directors in the United States, and he has assisted in drafting a board practices report published by the Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals.

Mr Sidhu is a regular keynote speaker and panellist at global summits on cybersecurity, which he sees as a cause that everyone, not only those in business, should play their part in to secure the economy and society at large.

Simon Cox

Emerging markets editor, The Economist

Simon Cox

Emerging markets editor, The Economist

Simon Cox is emerging-markets editor at The Economist. He is based in Hong Kong. Mr Cox has spent over ten years with the newspaper, including stints in London and Delhi. In 2014, he left journalism to become managing director and Asia-Pacific investment strategist for BNY Mellon, before returning to the paper in 2016.

During his career at The Economist and BNY Mellon, Mr Cox has written a variety of special reports and white papers. He has explored the technological ambitions of India and China ("High-tech Hopefuls", 2007), the world's arduous recovery from the global financial crisis ("The Long Climb", 2009), China's surprisingly resilient economy ("Pedalling Prosperity", 2012), and Korea's social and geopolitical divisions ("Parallel Worlds", 2013). In 2008, he edited "The Growth Report", published by the Commission on Growth and Development. He was also a contributor to the Oxford Companion to the Economics of China.

He studied at Cambridge, Harvard and the London School of Economics.

11:20 AM

The intelligent financial machine

From asset management to banking and insurance, AI is transforming the way financial institutions make decisions. Consumer-facing interfaces can understand a customer’s mood over the phone, institutions can monitor economic activity using satellite imagery, and machines are becoming as capable as humans in identifying investment opportunities.Yet, financial institutions in Asia are still behind the curve. They lack the basic digital infrastructure to collect the data that empowers AI, and struggle to build the right digital models.What are the opportunities for businesses to achieve competitive advantage in AI? How will machine learning continue to disrupt the sector through to 2020? And how can regulators prepare for decision-making machines?

Peng T. Ong

Managing partner, Monk’s Hill Ventures

Peng T. Ong

Managing partner, Monk’s Hill Ventures

Peng Ong was the co-founder and chief technology of Match.com, which was acquired by IAC. After Match.com, he was the founder and chief executive of Interwoven, which went public on the Nasdaq and achieved a $10 billion market cap before being acquired, and is now part of HP. He then founded Encentuate, which was acquired by IBM. The three businesses he started now generate annual revenues totalling more than $1 billion.

Most recently, Mr Ong was a partner at GSR Ventures, a leading venture-capital firm in China. He has also served on many boards, including those of SingTel and YY.com. He is currently the chairman of Solve Education!

He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas and a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Illinois.

Thiri Thant Mon

Managing partner, Sandanila Investments

Thiri Thant Mon

Managing partner, Sandanila Investments

Thiri Thant Mon is a founding managing partner at Sandanila Investments, an investment-banking advisory firm that advises on foreign investment, equity and debt financing, joint ventures, sales, mergers and acquisitions. She is a leader within the Myanmar business community and is actively involved in promoting Myanmar as a destination for foreign investment. She serves as a board member of NEXlabs and ThitsaWorks, and of the non-profit organisations Turquoise Mountain Foundation, Kite Tales Foundation, Phandeeyar Foundation, Doh Eain and the British Chambers of Commerce Myanmar.

She is a native of Yangon and was educated in Myanmar, the United States and Britain. She was previously an executive committee member at Yoma Strategic Holdings, where she headed corporate development. Before returning to Myanmar in 2013, she was a seasoned investment banker at Morgan Stanley in Britain, specialising in multibillion-dollar debt financings and interest-rate hedging for large European financial institutions. She started her career with Capital One in the United States and managed credit-risk forecasting for the British and European businesses.

She holds a degree in economics from the College of William & Mary in Virginia and an MBA from the London Business School.

Antoine Blondeau

Co-Founder and managing partner, Alpha Intelligence Capital

Antoine Blondeau

Co-Founder and managing partner, Alpha Intelligence Capital

Antoine Blondeau is a co-founder and the chairman and chief executive of Sentient Technologies, one of the world’s most prominent artificial (AI) technology companies. He is also a co-founder and managing partner at Alpha Intelligence Capital. A seasoned entrepreneur and investor, he has 25 years of experience in the technology industry, having held senior leadership positions at Salesforce, Good Technology and Sybase.

Mr Blondeau’s career highlights include leading Dejima, the company that powered DARPA’s foundational CALO project, which later evolved into Apple’s Siri, as chief executive. He was also the chief operating officer of Zi Corporation, whose smart text-input software was embedded in hundreds of millions of devices.

He is an investor in, board member of and advisor to a number of companies in North America and Greater China, and the author or co-author of five patents. He holds an MBA from ESCP Europe in Paris, and has studied economics and commerce at Chuo University in Tokyo.

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch is Asia economics editor of The Economist, with a focus on China and other emerging markets in the region. He is the author of a special report on the Chinese financial system, Big but brittle, which was published in May. Simon previously served as a correspondent with the Financial Times and Reuters in Beijing, Shanghai and London, reporting on finance and economics. He also had a brief stint as a table-tennis reporter during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Outside of journalism, Simon is national secretary for the Rhodes Scholarships for China.

12:00 PM

Lunch

1:00 PM

Panel: Financial inclusion—The good and the bad

Mobile wallets (in India), digital-remittance services (in the Philippines) and peer-to-peer lending (in China) have become common phrases in Asia’s financial lexicon. According to the International Labour Organization, a UN agency, the Asia-Pacific’s informal economy still accounts for 60% of its workforce, creating opportunities for financial institutions eager to access millions of new customers.Yet, many of the region’s rural poor, despite newfound access to investment products and financial advisory services, lack insurance and risk defaulting on easily obtained loans.What are the opportunities for banks in bringing people out of the informal economy? And how effective are governments and regulators in spurring investment into inclusive technology?

Amir Amiruddin

Co-founder, Investree

Amir Amiruddin

Co-founder, Investree

Amir was a senior banker turned fintech founder, angel investor and mentor to young people. Amir has over 23 years experience in investment banking and capital markets before co-founding investree in 2015. he was head of Indonesia, wealth management for SMBC Singapore, head of Indonesia investment banking for Nomura Singapore, co-head of capital markets & treasury solutions - Indonesia for Deutsche Bank Singapore, head of investment banking for AAA Securities Jakarta, AVP planning & business development for Bakrie Finance Jakarta, and he started his career in London as a commercial trainee at British Gas PLC after graduating from college.

Upasana Taku

Co-founder, MobiKwik

Upasana Taku

Co-founder, MobiKwik

The first woman in India to lead a payments start up, Upasana Taku, has played an instrumental role in building Mobikwik as one of India’s largest digital financial services platform, with a well-entrenched network of over 3 million direct merchants and 260 million plus users. Taku is widely recognised amongst the top women achievers in India, for her unfaltering contribution as the chief anchor, innovator and leader at MobiKwik. In recognition of her achievements in the tech startup ecosystem in India, Taku was featured by Forbes as one of the ‘Asia’s Women to Watch in 2016’. She has also featured in the Fortune 40 Under 40 List in the year 2016. Upasana comes with a strong background in payments. She has worked as a senior product manager at PayPal in Silicon Valley. She has also been associated with HSBC in San Diego, USA. In 2008 she decided to return to India and contribute to the ecosystem back home. A year later she co-founded MobiKwik.

Haichen Wang

Chief financial officer, Youxin Financial

Haichen Wang

Chief financial officer, Youxin Financial

Haichen Wang, CFA, is the chief financial officer of Youxin Financial. Before joining the firm, he was the director of strategy at Didi Chuxing, where he spearheaded international strategy and investments, including Didi’s acquisition of Brazil’s 99 Taxis and strategic investments in Taxify, Grab and Careem.

Previously, Mr Wang was an executive director at Goldman Sachs in the Financial Institutions Group, where he worked on a number of IPOs of Chinese banks, securities firms and asset-management companies. Mr Wang holds a juris doctor degree from the NYU School of Law, and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Cornell University.

Simon Cox

Emerging markets editor, The Economist

Simon Cox

Emerging markets editor, The Economist

Simon Cox is emerging-markets editor at The Economist. He is based in Hong Kong. Mr Cox has spent over ten years with the newspaper, including stints in London and Delhi. In 2014, he left journalism to become managing director and Asia-Pacific investment strategist for BNY Mellon, before returning to the paper in 2016.

During his career at The Economist and BNY Mellon, Mr Cox has written a variety of special reports and white papers. He has explored the technological ambitions of India and China ("High-tech Hopefuls", 2007), the world's arduous recovery from the global financial crisis ("The Long Climb", 2009), China's surprisingly resilient economy ("Pedalling Prosperity", 2012), and Korea's social and geopolitical divisions ("Parallel Worlds", 2013). In 2008, he edited "The Growth Report", published by the Commission on Growth and Development. He was also a contributor to the Oxford Companion to the Economics of China.

He studied at Cambridge, Harvard and the London School of Economics.

1:40 PM

The unbreakable chain?

Asian countries are backing blockchains. China’s central bank has developed its own digital currency. Japan has licensed bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchanges and Singapore is creating a regulatory sandbox for blockchain systems. Poorer countries in Asia, without legacy financial establishments, are leapfrogging Western ones in blockchain adoption. Everyone seems to be getting in on the action. But sceptics worry that a crash is coming.What is the investment trajectory for blockchain technology? Will the bitcoin bubble burst? To what extent will universal use of blockchains restore trust in financial services? And what are the investment requirements for building the necessary IT infrastructure?

Cory Johnson

Chief market strategist, Ripple

Cory Johnson

Chief market strategist, Ripple

Cory is the chief market strategist for Ripple, which develops the Ripple payment protocol and exchange network. Before joining Ripple, he worked as a hedge-fund portfolio manager at Kingsford Capital Management, and as a journalist at Bloomberg and CNBC covering high-growth technology companies.

Earlier in his career, Mr Johnson ushered in many start-ups, including theStreet.com, the Industry Standard, and SLAM and Vibe magazines.

Brian Behlendorf

Executive director, Hyperledger Project

Brian Behlendorf

Executive director, Hyperledger Project

Brian Behlendorf is the executive director of the Hyperledger Project. He was a primary developer of the Apache web server, the most popular web-server software on the Internet, and a founding member of the Apache Software Foundation. He has also served on the board of the Mozilla Foundation since 2003 and of the Electronic Frontier Foundation since 2013. He was the founding chief technology officer of CollabNet and the World Economic Forum. Most recently, Mr Behlendorf was a managing director at Mithril Capital Management, a global technology-investment firm.

Mark Smith

Chief executive and founder, Symbiont.io

Mark Smith

Chief executive and founder, Symbiont.io

Mark Shelby Smith is the chief executive and founder of Symbiont.io, a smart contracts platform for institutional applications of blockchain technology. Symbiont was formed in the merger of MathMoney f(x), founded by Mr Smith in 2013, and Counterparty.io.

Mr Smith brings two decades of global experience in fintech to his role as chief executive of Symbiont.io, and has been a pioneer in creating and deploying disruptive technology into the foreign-exchange ecosystem for institutional and non-institutional customer segments. During his career, Mark has been a founder of four fintech companies that have gone from start-up to exit, including the NexTrade ECN, MatchBook f(x), Lava Trading and Anderen Bank of Tampa Bay.

Susan Zhou

Chief operating officer and board member, QLC Chain

Susan Zhou

Chief operating officer and board member, QLC Chain

Susan was a former partner of Rhodium Capital. Prior to that, Susan had more than 10-years of experience in investment banking and private equity across Asia. Susan earned her M.B.A. in the University of Hong Kong.

Simon Cox

Emerging markets editor, The Economist

Simon Cox

Emerging markets editor, The Economist

Simon Cox is emerging-markets editor at The Economist. He is based in Hong Kong. Mr Cox has spent over ten years with the newspaper, including stints in London and Delhi. In 2014, he left journalism to become managing director and Asia-Pacific investment strategist for BNY Mellon, before returning to the paper in 2016.

During his career at The Economist and BNY Mellon, Mr Cox has written a variety of special reports and white papers. He has explored the technological ambitions of India and China ("High-tech Hopefuls", 2007), the world's arduous recovery from the global financial crisis ("The Long Climb", 2009), China's surprisingly resilient economy ("Pedalling Prosperity", 2012), and Korea's social and geopolitical divisions ("Parallel Worlds", 2013). In 2008, he edited "The Growth Report", published by the Commission on Growth and Development. He was also a contributor to the Oxford Companion to the Economics of China.

He studied at Cambridge, Harvard and the London School of Economics.

2:25 PM

Coffee break

2:55 PM

Oxford-style debate: This house believes that the financial services sector has learnt its lesson from the experiences of the recession

Two economists will debate the themes of the day and argue whether banks are well equipped to identify future crises, or destined to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Louis Kuijs

Head of Asia economics, Oxford Economics

Louis Kuijs

Head of Asia economics, Oxford Economics

As head of Asia Economics at Oxford Economics in Hong Kong, Louis leads the firm’s macroeconomic research and forecasting for Asia, oversees the team of economists across the region and serves clients globally, including through meetings and conferences. Before joining Oxford Economics, Louis held a number of senior positions in both the public and private sectors, including at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank in Beijing, and as chief economist for Greater China at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong. While with the World Bank in Beijing, he led the well-regarded China Quarterly Update, headed the mid-term review of China’s 11th Five Year Plan and led research on China’s saving and investment, rebalancing, and long term growth and structural change. Mr. Kuijs is a well-known observer of the Chinese economy and contributes regularly to the international media.

Douglas Arner

Kerry holdings professor in law, University of Hong Kong

Douglas Arner

Kerry holdings professor in law, University of Hong Kong

Douglas W. Arner is a professor in law at the University of Hong Kong and one of the world’s leading experts on financial regulation, particularly the intersection between law, finance and technology. He is a member of the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council, an executive committee member of the Asia Pacific Structured Finance Association, and a senior visiting fellow of Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. Douglas served as head of the HKU Department of Law from 2011 to 2014 and as co-director of the Duke University-HKU Asia-America Institute in Transnational Law from 2005 to 2016. From 2006 to 2011 he was the director of HKU’s Asian Institute of International Financial Law, which he co-founded in 1999. He has published fifteen books and more than 120 articles, chapters and reports on international financial law and regulation. Douglas has served as a consultant with, among others, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, APEC and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and has lectured, co-organised conferences and seminars and been involved with financial sector reform projects around the world.

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch is Asia economics editor of The Economist, with a focus on China and other emerging markets in the region. He is the author of a special report on the Chinese financial system, Big but brittle, which was published in May. Simon previously served as a correspondent with the Financial Times and Reuters in Beijing, Shanghai and London, reporting on finance and economics. He also had a brief stint as a table-tennis reporter during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Outside of journalism, Simon is national secretary for the Rhodes Scholarships for China.

3:45 PM

Panel: The dragon in the room

China has driven global growth since the GFC. Its demand for resources has propped up economies as diverse as Australia, Vietnam and Kenya. Four of the world’s five biggest banks are Chinese, and the country’s Belt and Road Initiative plans to redefine international trade forever.But, according to Moody’s, shadow banking represented $9.72 trillion in the first half of 2017. China’s corporate debt has spiralled out of control—the government has had to rein in companies overzealously pursuing credit-fuelled acquisitions abroad. Its regulations on foreign investment in the financial-services sector are tricky for foreign firms, and its housing market shows most of the telltale signs of a bubble.What will be the future of China’s economy? How will Xi Jinping’s consolidation at last year’s national congress affect its long-term trajectory? What is the opportunity for foreign financial services? As China’s long-touted move toward a consumption-based, high-quality economy becomes a reality, how will markets react? And how can the sector prepare for worst-case economic scenarios in China?

Peter Kim

Investment strategist and managing director, Mirae Asset

Peter Kim

Investment strategist and managing director, Mirae Asset

Peter Kim is part of Mirae Asset’s global business division, which is based in Seoul. He has 25 years in the investment industry, in fields ranging from investment banking to asset management. He previously served as country head for HSBC Securities Korea. During his time in asset management, he managed long-only and long-short equities portfolios covering the pan-Asian region. Mr Kim was a co-portfolio manager for Gavekal Capital, one of the largest independent macro and asset-allocation firms in the world. Currently, his role with Mirae Asset Daewoo covers analysing global investment trends across multiple asset classes, with a strong focus on equities.

Steven Cochrane

Chief Asia-Pacific economist, Moody's Analytics

Steven Cochrane

Chief Asia-Pacific economist, Moody's Analytics

Steve Cochrane is the chief Asia-Pacific economist at Moody’s Analytics. He leads the Asia economic analysis and forecasting activities of the Moody’s Analytics research team, as well as the continual expansion of the company’s international, national and subnational forecast models. He also directs consulting projects for clients to help them understand the effect of regional economic developments on their business under baseline forecasts and alternative scenarios.

Steve’s expertise lies in providing clear insights into an area’s strengths, weaknesses and comparative advantages, relative to macro or global economic trends. A highly-regarded speaker, he has provided economic insights at hundreds of engagements over the past 20 years and has been featured on Wall Street Radio, the PBS News Hour, C-SPAN and CNBC.

Mr Cochrane holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and is a Penn Institute for Urban Research Scholar. He also holds a master’s degree from the University of Colorado at Denver and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Davis. Currently based in North America, he travels extensively and will continue his career from the Singapore office of Moody’s Analytics starting in August 2018.

Zhou Jing

President, PINTEC Group

Zhou Jing

President, PINTEC Group

Zhou Jing has served as the president of Pintec since January 2018. She joined the group in 2015, initially as the chief executive of Dumiao, Pintec’s digital lending technology subsidiary.

Before joining Pintec, Ms Zhou had 17 years of experience working for multinational banks, and extensive experience in risk management and developing financial products for consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises. She worked at Standard Chartered Bank (China) for nine years after moving back to China in 2006. As country credit head for China at Standard Chartered Bank, she was responsible for more than $5 billion worth of credit assets. Previously, she spent eight years at Capital One in the United States, holding positions in risk management, marketing and product development. She holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Virginia.

Christine Ip

Christine Ip

Christine joined United Overseas Bank (UOB) in 2011 and is now the managing director responsible for developing the bank’s Greater China strategy. She was appointed as chief executive of UOB Hong Kong in 2012 and chief executive for Greater China from 1 July 2016.

Ms Ip is a seasoned banker with more than 30 years of experience in consumer and corporate banking. Before joining UOB, she held a range of senior management positions in Hong Kong, the United States, Canada, Singapore and China with ANZ, Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC.

Her achievements brought her the Asia Retail Congress award for best international retail banker in 2008, and the All-China Women’s Federation named her among the top 100 senior women executives in Greater China in 2012.

Ms Ip holds a bachelor’s degree in arts from the University of Hong Kong and an MBA from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch is Asia economics editor of The Economist, with a focus on China and other emerging markets in the region. He is the author of a special report on the Chinese financial system, Big but brittle, which was published in May. Simon previously served as a correspondent with the Financial Times and Reuters in Beijing, Shanghai and London, reporting on finance and economics. He also had a brief stint as a table-tennis reporter during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Outside of journalism, Simon is national secretary for the Rhodes Scholarships for China.

4:25 PM

Closing remarks

Simon Cox

Emerging markets editor, The Economist

Simon Cox

Emerging markets editor, The Economist

Simon Cox is emerging-markets editor at The Economist. He is based in Hong Kong. Mr Cox has spent over ten years with the newspaper, including stints in London and Delhi. In 2014, he left journalism to become managing director and Asia-Pacific investment strategist for BNY Mellon, before returning to the paper in 2016.

During his career at The Economist and BNY Mellon, Mr Cox has written a variety of special reports and white papers. He has explored the technological ambitions of India and China ("High-tech Hopefuls", 2007), the world's arduous recovery from the global financial crisis ("The Long Climb", 2009), China's surprisingly resilient economy ("Pedalling Prosperity", 2012), and Korea's social and geopolitical divisions ("Parallel Worlds", 2013). In 2008, he edited "The Growth Report", published by the Commission on Growth and Development. He was also a contributor to the Oxford Companion to the Economics of China.

He studied at Cambridge, Harvard and the London School of Economics.

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch

Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch is Asia economics editor of The Economist, with a focus on China and other emerging markets in the region. He is the author of a special report on the Chinese financial system, Big but brittle, which was published in May. Simon previously served as a correspondent with the Financial Times and Reuters in Beijing, Shanghai and London, reporting on finance and economics. He also had a brief stint as a table-tennis reporter during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Outside of journalism, Simon is national secretary for the Rhodes Scholarships for China.

4:55 PM

Event close

Venue

Refined luxury and modern convenience blend seamlessly here at the JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong. Boasting a central location in the Admiralty area of the city, atop Pacific Place Mall and moments from the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, the hotel welcomes you to the luxury accommodation and you will enjoy free Wi-Fi access and 24-hour room service, relax with a dip in the heated outdoor pool, and choose from eight on-site restaurants, bars and lounges, each with its own distinct personalities.

JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong

Sponsors

Gold sponsor

Gold sponsor

Youxin Financial

Youxin Financial founded in 2010, Youxin Financial is a leading China Fintech company, focused on individual financial services including inclusive loans, consumer finance and personal wealth management. The company’s mission is to provide better personal financial services to customers around the world. Youxin Financial includes several leading brands in the Chinese fintech industry, such as Ucredit and Renrendai.

Silver sponsor

Silver sponsor

BLACKSTAR&CO

BLACKSTAR&CO. is a blockchain technology company that designs the future of people and investments. We will launch SPINDLE project that consists of new cryptocurrency “ SPINDLE” and investment match making platform “Zeta” SPINDLE will be listed on HITBTC in May 2018.

Academic sponsor

Academic sponsor

INSEAD

As one of the world's leading and largest graduate business schools, INSEAD offers participants a truly global educational experience. With campuses in Europe (France), Asia (Singapore) and Middle East (Abu Dhabi), and alliances with top institutions, INSEAD's business education and research spans around the globe. Our 145 renowned faculty members from 40 countries inspire more than 1,300 participants annually in our MBA, Executive MBA, Executive Master in Finance, and Executive Master in Consulting and Coaching for Change programmes.

Media partner

DuniaFintech.com

DuniaFintech.com is online media specializing about technology and startup financial technology. Our Vision: To be the leading information provider especially in the field of financial technology and preferred partners in providing information, event, and technology solutions for business people. Our Mission: To be the primary choice in providing quality news content for the people, actual, and from reliable sources. Build a reputation as a trusted service provider for a wide range of information delivery in order to meet the needs of business people.

Supporting organisation

Agile Blockchain Consortium

Agile Blockchain Consortium (ABC) is a non-profit organization to define and design a fresh Distributed Ledger Technology fabric resolving the concerns of trust, security, transparency, cost, performance, and regulatory and then license it free to the public.

Supporting organisation

ASEAN FinTech Network

The ASEAN Fintech Network is a platform of the best minds from Fintech hubs in the region, brought together to address the biggest problems facing Fintech in ASEAN. It provides a neutral and open platform for collaboration and knowledge sharing in this fast-changing environment. It is a forum for all Fintech hubs in ASEAN fintech hubs to share best practices and come with actionable items to support each other.

Supporting organisation

Co-operatives of Innovative Intellectuals

Co-operatives of Innovative Intellectuals (CII) is a non-profit organization with the charity status granted under Section 88 of the Hong Kong Internal Revenue Ordinance for promoting inclusion and breakthrough innovation.

Supporting organisation

Cyberport

Cyberport is an innovative digital community with more than 1000 digital tech companies. It is managed by Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Limited, which is wholly owned by the Hong Kong SAR Government. With the vision to become a main force in developing the digital tech industry as a key economic driver of Hong Kong, Cyberport is committed to nurturing youth, start-ups and entrepreneurs to grow in the digital industry by connecting them to strategic partners and investors, driving collaboration with local and international business partners to create new opportunities, and accelerating digital adoption amongst corporates and SME.

Supporting organisation

FinTech Association of Hong Kong

The FinTech Association of Hong Kong (FTAHK) is an independent, not-for-profit, membership based association representing Hong Kong’s FinTech community.The aim of the association is to unite the Hong Kong FinTech industry and ecosystem in order to elevate Hong Kong's status as a FinTech hub. It works on creating awareness, employment, education, promotion and advocacy around FinTech. Members range from start-ups to the world’s leading global corporations and come together through 12 committees on various verticals of FinTech including Blockchain, AI, WealthTech, Payments, Digital Banking and Financial Inclusion.The Association’s three pillars are:

Supporting organisation

Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce (HKGCC)

Founded in 1861, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce is the oldest, yet most dynamic business organization in Hong Kong. The Chamber serves as the voice of business, and helps members succeed through our core functions: advocacy, knowledge-based events, networking, and a variety of business documentation services.

Supporting organisation

Singapore Fintech Association

We’re a cross-industry, not-for-profit organization, established to benefit our members from the full range of
Singapore’s FinTech ecosystem.
Our vision is simple but ambitious. We want to make Singapore a leader in FinTech innovation and investment.
We do this by facilitating collaboration amongst participants and stakeholders, to provide access to talent, capital and
markets for our members.

Supporting organisation

SuperCharger FinTech

SuperCharger is a FinTech accelerator based in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur with a unique model of accepting applications from both early stage start-ups and established scale-ups. It benefits the accelerator’s participants by bringing them access to go-to-market resources, outstanding mentorship, as well as unrivalled technology and expert advice in areas such as market entry, regulatory obligations, and joint-venture opportunities.

Supporting organisation

WHub

WHub (whub.io), Hong Kong’s biggest startup community and power connector, is a platform showcasing startups to accelerate their business through making meaningful connections to the resources they need to grow.

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